Churchill biopic the BNP won't like: Into the Storm reviewed

Celebrated in the 20th century as a victor in war, Winston Churchill has turned out in the 21st to be just as reliable a winner of awards. Seven years ago, Albert Finney did the transatlantic double of a Bafta and an Emmy for his portrayal of Winnie being frozen out of British politics in the approach to 1939 in The Gathering Storm.

Finney politely turned down the chance to fight the second world war in the sequel, Into the Storm. But Brendan Gleeson has already won an Emmy for his replacement portrayal, and tonight establishes his beachhead for the Baftas, when the HBO-BBC co-production is shown here.

This Churchillian biopic transmits at an interesting time, soon after Nick Griffin, in his Question Time appearance, expanded on his claim that only the BNP represents the political legacy of the cherished war leader. However, the script – written, like The Gathering Storm, by the fine British screenwriter Hugh Whitemore – will certainly make uncomfortable viewing for any far-right nutters in the UK trying to claim Winnie as king of the super-Brits.

The second world war is seen in flashback from the south of France, where Churchill, with his wife, Clemmie (Janet McTeer taking over from Vanessa Redgrave in the original), awaits the 1945 election results. These, in one of many details bizarre to followers of modern politics, were delayed for three weeks after polling day to await the votes of the soldiers, who would ignore Churchill politically.

Another aspect of the past improbable to modernity is that a British prime minister could have a heart attack in Washington without anyone knowing, but this tense scene, like everything in Whitemore's script – including even the part where Churchill accidentally parades naked in front of President Roosevelt – has impeccable historical credentials.

Churchill's first coronary is typical of the film's commendable willingness to depict its protagonist's frailties. Ensuring that Into the Storm is unlikely to be chosen for Movie Night at many BNP branches, Gleeson is given numerous moments of weakness, petulance and despair. Whereas Hollywood projects tend to inflate American authorship of the war, this film punctures it: Eisenhower isn't even dramatised.

The actors seem to have been encouraged to resist direct impersonation, while the piece's other weakness is compression. The Gathering Storm had a longer period to cover but those were years in which Churchill was a background figure. This time, Whitemore has so much action to fit in a film the length of a football match that Dunkirk and D-day flash past in minutes like a military version of a football highlights show.

But despite such inevitable simplifications, Into the Storm is a handsome and factually accurate drama which impeccably avoids the risk of handing over Churchill to either the British or American far right. This DVD is as unlikely to make the shelves at Nick Griffin's heavily guarded farmhouse as is his Question Time humiliation.